Welcome to another eclectic collection of physics-ish links. This week on Nautilus, I wrote about how that Quirky Muon Just Might Spur a Physics Breakthrough—Again.

I also hosted a great conversation with JPL planetary scientist Kevin Hand on Virtually Speaking Science in Second Life. Kevin was the science consultant for the awesome new film Europa Report, and he dished on the behind-the-scenes details of how the filmmakers worked real science into their fiction. We also chatted about his own research recreating the conditions on Europa in the lab ("Europa in a can"), and his experience joining director James Cameron on the latter's dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Incidentally, Kevin was featured in Cameron's IMAX film several years ago, Into the Deep, and also consulted on Avatar. Plus, he founded his own charity to bring science education to kids in Kenya. So, you know, he's pretty damn awesome. You can listen to the taped podcast on Blog Talk Radio here.

This week on Quanta: In Natural Networks, there is Strength in Loops."Loop architectures, like redundant computer networks or electrical grids, make structures resistant to damage. " Also, George Hart is back with an amazing new video: Making Music With a Möbius Strip, the surprising connection between topology and musical chords.

This was also the week that Elon Musk -- of Tesla and Space X fame -- announced he'd be revealing his schemes for something called a Hyperloop: a super-fast commuter train using pneumatic tubes that would be able to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a breathtaking 35 minutes. We like Musk; so does Physics Buzz, in part because he says cool stuff like, "I think of the future as branching probability streams." Also? Rockets, baby!

It's all very steampunk, as retro as it is futuristic, in Jen-Luc's humble opinion. Several people pointed out that the notion of a pneumatic tube transport system isn't all that new. I blogged about Alfred Beach's plans for such a system in New York City back in 2011. Bloomberg News was more belligerent: New York Had a Hyperloop First, Elon Musk. (Subtext: Take that, Mr. Genius Billionaire Guy! Pbbt!) The Guardian reminded us that a Hyperloop between London and Edinburgh was proposed in 1825. Curbed LA pointed out that back in 1909 there was a plan for a superfast elevated transit between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Related: "The Cat in the Canister." The Atlantic remembers that time people sent a cat through the mail using pneumatic tubes. "As a general rule, it seems, humans will always find ways to join cats and series of tubes."

So Is the Internet Really Just Cats? It involves toxoplasmosis, metonymy and the transitive property of congruence:

With all the Hyperloop hype, maybe you didn't notice that the Perseids Bombarded Earth with Comet Dust this week. There were some impressive photographs making the rounds, as well as this incredible footage showing a Perseid meteor exploding. The Guardian's Gavin Extence says that science has not diminished the awe and primordial pleasure human beings feel when looking up into the night sky.

"That's totally photoshopped, you can tell by the shadows." New algorithm analyzes shadows to spot fake photos.

If you can't see it, it doesn't exist." Belief in the multiverse requires exceptional vision, according to this article by Tom Siegfried citing the ideas of Frank Wilczek. But the Curious Wavefunction begs to differ with Siegfried's take.

Princeton researchers, using a 3-D printer, have built a bionic ear with integrated electronics. "Lab-made organs could do more than just serve as ready options for patients in need: with the right blend of biology and materials science, they might even be able to endow people with superhuman abilities." That could totally be a TV series!

These spiky runway dresses are created from iron filings and magnets. Fashion designer Iris Van Herpen "created a material out of iron filings and resin, experimenting to create just the right texture and pearlescent colors, and then guided the material over sections of fabric" with magnets.

Primed: The smashing science behind particle accelerators. "as massive colliders seem ready to land on the endangered species list, it seems as good a time as any to explain what a particle collider is, how it works and what we as a society have to gain from the research."

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers.